


crash in the dark

by redstaronmyshoulder (CaptainAmelia22)



Series: Our Dreams Wide Open [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Choking, Dreams and Nightmares, M/M, Pain, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Relationship Discussions, Violence, mentions of rape/assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 11:15:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18849967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainAmelia22/pseuds/redstaronmyshoulder
Summary: Dorian wakes one night to his lover's violent night terrors and as Mahanon's fingers tighten around his throat he realizes it may be time to dig a little deeper into Inquisitor Lavellan's past.Trigger warnings: Choking, mentions of rape and past assault, I tried to get the tags right.





	crash in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> I was having a really bad day yesterday and spent most of it channeling my anxiety and sadness into this fic. It's dark and kind of angsty. 
> 
> I also kind of fudged some of the Dalish? It's hard to find phrases and words that work so I just sort of, blended a few things to make it sound elf-y. Sorry if that's annoying. 
> 
> I know the Force Mage isn't a class in DAI but I will always love it and always miss playing a Force Mage. So I just made my Lavellan a Force Mage. Fight me! LOL 
> 
> Thank you all for reading. Any weird errors or continuity issues are my own. 
> 
> -M

The Inquisitor has dreams.

No, that’s too trite a term for the things the man experiences at night.

The Inquisitor has... _terrors_.

Usually, their nights together end with a gentle kiss in the Inquisitor’s doorway, before Dorian slips away through the shadows and makes his way to his quaint quarters. His empty bed, with its bear furs and a few books to keep him company.

His cold, lonely bed.

For once though, he doesn’t complain about his rustic surroundings. He knows Mahanon is still unsure of them. Of where this whole steamy affair is going.

Besides, Josephine is notorious for forgetting how to knock and neither of them really want to be lectured on propriety and respectability just yet. Probably while naked and trying to hide their genitals from the sharp gaze of the lovely, yet terrifying ambassador.

Dorian sighs and stretches in Mahanon’s bed, lips quirking in a small smile when he catches sight of his lover’s sleepy, blissed out face.

“Time for me to go, amatus. It’s late and Varric will be at his fireside haunt soon, watching all,” he murmurs, leaning down to place a soft kiss on the faded edges of ink gracing the younger man’s temple. “You should clean up and get some sleep.”

“Mmm,” Mahanon sighs, shifting closer and slender fingers snaking out from under the blankets to grip Dorian’s bare thigh. “Stay, please.”

Green eyes, foggy with sex and exhaustion meet his and as usual, Dorian caves.

“Fine,” he says, sliding back under the luxurious weight of the covers and pulling the other man into his arms. “But if Lady Montilyet sees my balls tomorrow morning and calls me a cradle robber, I’ll be blaming you, Inquisitor Lavellan.”

A soft snort greets his words and Mahanon snuggles closer, strong arms wrapping tight around Dorian’s waist, locking him in place against his chest.

It warms the cockles of Dorian’s heart.

Mahanon Lavellan so very rarely shows his sensitive side to the world. Dorian wasn’t entirely sure the man even had a romantic bone in his body until very recently.

He smiles and strokes his fingers through his lover’s unbound black hair, marveling as always at the glossy silk flowing over his skin.

Mahanon is a puzzle, for many of them. Only Leliana seems to know some of the man’s past and that knowledge was certainly not gained through Lavellan himself. Dorian frowns, sleep a distant tease for now and he contents himself with feathering touches over his lover’s body, smiling absently when Mahanon hums and snuggles closer.

Dorian has shared his bed for a few months now. Has seen their beautiful, fierce Inquisitor come apart. He, too, has been shattered and put back together under Mahanon’s capable, strong hands nearly every night they can be alone in Skyhold.

He cherishes it. Cherishes the man breathing deeply in peaceful sleep in his arms now.

Cherishes the knowledge that he is allowed to witness Mahanon’s gentle smiles and wry sense of humor every night they get to spend together.

He cherishes…

Kaffas.

“You know,” he says, propping his head up on one hand and letting the other trail gently over his lover’s tattooed cheek. “When I came to the south, I was prepared to die a lonely spinster, a martyr for this holy war.” He snorts. “The rustics in Fereleden are so distrustful of a Tevinter mage, how would I ever expect to bed one? I knew I would never find love here in the cold depths of the south.”

Mahanon, relaxed and peaceful in his sleep, smiles a bit at Dorian’s voice and the Tevinter man’s heart wrenches at the sight. The year of near constant stress and fear falls away from Mahanon’s body when he sleeps.

It is endearing.

And heartbreaking, in equal measure.

Their Inquisitor is young, barely a man really.

And he shoulders the world for them, every single day.

Dorian sighs and runs a finger lightly along the sensitive outer shell of his pointed ear, marveling, always marveling at his lover’s beauty.

“I never expected to find you and fall for you, Mahanon Lavellan,” he murmurs, eyes burning with tears. “How did this happen? How did I fall in love with the head of the Inquisition.”

It’s a stupid question, really.

The Inquisition was born out of desperation and fear.

Their days in Haven were spent scrambling through the snow, trying to garner peace between mages and the world. Trying to calm the tide of ever encroaching disaster. Mahanon had been an unwilling figurehead, at first uncertain and as scared as any of them.

But every day he had stood before Thedas, straight-backed and proud, always a voice of practicality and wisdom.

Their Herald had become a true leader in those early days, calm and level-headed.

Every single one of his inner circle would die for him, willingly.

That kind of loyalty…

 _Magisters kill for the dream of that loyalty_ , Dorian thinks, sometimes when he catches sight of the fierce love in Mahanon’s followers’ eyes.

Who could even blame his countrymen though? He’d kill for even a quarter of Mahanon’s love.

“Do you remember the day we met?” he asks suddenly, eyes finally starting to grow heavy with sleep, hand resting lightly on his lover’s steadily beating heart. “Maker, but you were gorgeous. I almost got torn apart by a demon just because I couldn’t drag my eyes from you, amatus. I’ve never seen a mage move the way you do.”

He rests his head on the pillow beside Mahanon’s and runs a knuckle gently along the angle of his cheekbone.

“I think I knew that day, if you’d have me, I’d be yours,” he chuckles, eyes starting to close, limbs growing heavy with sleep. “How absolutely ridiculous. An altus falling for a Dalish mage…”

He’d never slept in a lover’s bed before. In Minrathous, his sexuality alone was taboo. Any sexual outing with another man was a risk. The luxury of taking one’s time and spending that time getting to know one’s lover was entirely unknown. Until now.

Now…

Now he could grow used to falling asleep in his love’s arms.

Dorian was always an easy sleeper. Falling asleep had never been a struggle. His sojourns through the Fade were more pleasurable than nightmarish. He usually woke feeling well rested, even these days when his hours of rest are fleeting.

No one told him Mahanon Lavellan does not have the luxury of easy rest.

No one warned him that if he shared the Inquisitor’s bed he may wake to the man gripping his throat between his desperate hands and snarling at him in elvish, green eyes blank and black with his fears.

None of them even dreamed of this particular nightmare…

“Mahanon,” he chokes, that night, sometime after falling asleep, his hand still cradling his lover’s cheek. “Mahanon, it’s-it’s me.”

He thrashes a bit, instincts raging, trying to knock the other man off but Mahanon is far stronger than he. Strong in his unknowing assault.

Mahanon’s fingers clench harder on his throat and the snarled words falling from his lips are almost feral sounding.

Wild.

Terrifying.

All those stories Dorian had heard of the Dalish living in the wooded realms of Ferelden and Orlais weave their way through his foggy, struggling mind and his blood runs cold when Mahanon puts even more pressure on his windpipes.

“Love-” he chokes, eyes starting to roll back in his head.

And that’s when he starts to catch some of the hissed words falling from his lover’s lips.

_“Diratha’ven ma vae, ma judal Aaren.”_

_You will pay for killing Aaren._

Aaren?

Magic, always lying in wait beneath his skin, rises to his fingertips then, desperation leaving a coppery aftertaste on his tongue. And even though his staff rests in the corner beside Mahanon’s, he summons some of his lightning magic to press static charged fingers against one of the hands gripping his throat.

The storm magic whips through the room, colliding with Mahanon’s own particular brand of force energy and the Dalish man gasps, falling back with a curse.

Long black hair spreads like a river across the tangled scarlet sheets, his slender body shuddering with Dorian’s magic and his own lingering terror. He struggles to rise from the bed, still spitting half-understood elvish in Dorian’s direction.

The name Aaren is said a few more times and Dorian, coughing and trying to maintain his consciousness, searches his foggy, shaken brain for any past mention of the name. He’d felt Mahanon’s fear. His pain.

He’d seen the loss in his darkened eyes.

_Who was Aaren? Who killed him, whoever he was?_

A broken sob drags his attention away from his throbbing muscles and he glances over to see Mahanon curling into himself, shaking hands rising to grip the tangled hair at the back of his skull.

“ _Ir abelas_ ,” he whispers, his voice cracking with what Dorian realizes might be tears. “ _Ir abelas, Aaren…_ ”

_I am sorry. I am sorry, Aaren…_

Dorian’s blood runs cold at the agony he hears in the other man’s voice, the terrifying grief. The fear.

_Oh gods..._

“Mahanon,” Dorian rasps, wincing when his vocal cords twinge and he stretches shaking fingers out to stroke the shaking, scarred back of his lover. “Mahanon, come back to me.”

The moment he touches Mahanon-Maker, his skin is ice cold-the Dalish mage sits upright with a curse and throws himself from the bed, sinking into a defensive stance that does very little to hide the still feral gleam in his eyes.

Their eyes lock, both of them staring wildly across the room at the other, their chests rising and falling frantically, the smell of their fear replacing the musky scent of sex in the air.

“Amatus,” Dorian whispers, tears rising in his eyes.

Maker curse it…

Someone had warned him about Inquisitor Lavellan’s night terrors.

Mahanon himself had mentioned it, that first night, when they’d come across each other in the shadows of Skyhold’s upper walkways.

 _My dreams are usually of a different nature_ , he’d said, shadows hiding his face as he’d watched Dorian try to put himself back together after an ill-timed masturbation episode. _A little bit more red tinted and full of screams._

_Maker. I’ve been a fool._

“Mahanon,” he says now, easing slowly from the bed, one hand still resting carefully on his bruised throat. “It’s me. It’s Dorian. Can you-can you hear me?”

His lover’s green eyes-glowing in the weak moonlight peeking through the balcony windows-track his every slow movement and he begins to shake his head, legs trembling now.

“No, no,” he whispers, repeatedly, eyes fluttering closed and fingers clutching tight around his tattooed chest. Like a man trying to hold himself together. “No, no, no, no, not like this,” he chokes, finally sagging to the floor. “You weren’t supposed to see this. _Ir abelas, ma vhenan. Av’al eval’te Mythal’este._ ”

_I have failed in Mythal’s eyes…_

He crumples then, a broken cry falling from his lips and oh Maker. This, this is not the way Dorian likes seeing his fierce Inquisitor coming apart at the seams. Gods, anything but this.

“Sweetheart,” he says, kneeling before the other man and reaching out with shaking fingers to stroke his tangled hair. Mahanon shudders, curling deeper into himself, black head bowed so his long hair curtains his face, hiding him from Dorian’s gaze. “Sweetheart, please look at me.”

“I-I have failed you Dorian,” comes a choked whisper from the man he loves so very dearly and Dorian’s heart shatters at the pain he hears in Mahanon’s voice. “I-I-you shouldn’t see this. It isn’t...isn’t fair to you.”

Shaking fingers rise to grip Dorian’s wrist and his slender form shakes as he lets out a ragged sob.

“I’m sorry.”

Dorian, shivering now in the cool air of the Inquisitor’s bedroom, just strokes his head a few more times and sighs.

“How long have you been having nightmares, Mahanon?”

The Dalish mage stills, every muscle in his slender body locking tight and a different kind of fear fills Dorian’s heart. He can feel the other man’s pulse racing, from the tight grip anchoring his hand to Mahanon’s head.

He can hear the short, ragged, panicked breaths whistling between his clenched teeth.

He knows what sheer terror looks like.

“Love,” he begins but Mahanon shakes his head and pushes away from him, scrambling upright, hands raised in a warding gesture.

“Get out, Dorian,” he snarls, shadowed eyes glowing briefly as they catch the fading moonlight. “Get out and stay out.”

Dorian, hand still raised from where it had rested against Mahanon’s hair, can do nothing but stare up into the black, furious eyes of his love.

“Mahanon-”

“Get. Out.”

Mahanon bites the words out, loathing and fury dripping from his voice. He stands there, straight-backed, proud.

But Dorian knows him well now. Or at least, better than when they’d first met in that shithole of a Chantry so many months ago.

He can see the mask crumbling.

Crumbling to reveal the scarred, broken-hearted man he has only seen brief glimpses of during their nights together.

“No,” he says, his voice as gentle as he can make it, despite his damaged muscles. “I will not leave you, Inquisitor Lavellan.”

He rises smoothly, muscles rippling and body tensing for the fight he isn’t sure is coming or not.

Mahanon’s face is shadowed, but he can feel the air around them starting to tense as the force mage’s power starts to gather, cloaking him in energy.

I am not afraid of your demons, my love, he thinks, projects, really, in the other man’s direction. We have faced worse in this past year…

“I, like every single one of your companions and friends, have sworn to stand by your side. To see you through this nightmare, for however long it may take.” He pauses, smiles weakly and gestures between them. “Whatever form said nightmare may be, Mahanon.” He reaches up between them, fingers trembling as he closes the little distance between their naked bodies, and cups his lover’s cheek, ignoring the other man’s flinch. “Let me ease your nightmares, amatus.”

Mahanon, still stiff and guarded, stares down into Dorian’s pleading eyes, his own still slightly unfocused and shadowed.

Then, with a shudder and a hissed exhalation of air, his shoulders sag and his head bows.

Dorian tries to not think of this as a victory when Mahanon’s shaking hand rises to once more lightly grip his wrist. But Maker…

Every time Mahanon Lavellan surrenders a little is a victory.

“All right,” Mahanon sighs, black hair spilling over their hands to shield his face once more. “All right Dorian. Just...give me a moment. I need...I need to gather myself.”

Dorian smiles and taking his courage up, he stretches up on his tiptoes to press a light kiss to the other man’s cheek.

“Of course, Mahanon,” he says, smile growing when his lover leans into the kiss a bit and his fingers tighten on his wrist. “Let me clean up and make us some tea. I’m afraid my usually quaffed appearance is a bit too rumpled for a late-night appearance in the kitchens. The sculleries will gossip, you know.”

His feeble attempt at humor is met with a soft bark of a laugh from the other man-another small victory-and Mahanon nods.

“I do keep making a mess of your mustache, don’t I?” he asks, glancing at Dorian through his lowered lashes and raising his other hand to stroke Dorian’s upper lip. “I’m sorry.”

“Psh,” Dorian scoffs, waving the words away and pressing a kiss to Mahanon’s palm. “Nonsense. You making a mess of my face is something I quite enjoy Inquisitor Lavellan.”

The sound of Mahanon’s husky laugh warms him, even as he makes his way through the chilly, sleeping castle, his robes hastily strapped and wrapped about his body.

He downs a healing potion while waiting for the water to boil in the kitchens, several floors away, his mind spinning as he tries to wrap it around the night’s rather...unusual outcome.

 _The first night I sleep in his bed and he chokes me_ , he thinks idly, measuring a few spoonfuls of tea leaves in the kettle he’d pulled down from the shelves over the mantle and placed upon a tray along with some cups and a pot of Nevarran honey. _I always did wonder what erotic asphyxiation might be like but maybe not in such a way..._

The soft clink of pottery is the only sound in the castle, besides the scuff of his bare feet on the flagstones and granite steps winding towards the Inquisitors bedchambers.

The tea-smelling like minty elfroot and sharp crystal grace washes over his nose, easing his muscles as only a good pot of tea can do. With a deep breath, he takes the last two stairs leading to Mahanon’s door slowly, listening all the while for telltale sounds of strife from beyond the gapped door.

Silence greets him, though.

Balancing the tray he knocks once, twice on the Inquisitor’s door and holding his breath without realizing, he waits for his love’s voice to beckon him through.

For a long moment, there is nothing but that all-encompassing silence and Dorian’s heart hammers in his chest, panic starting to make his palms sweat.

Then, when he is finally to the point of frantic, Mahanon’s voice calls for him to enter.

Dorian, still holding his breath and wondering if he should maybe grab his staff as he passes it, bumps the door open with his shoulder and peers through the uncertain candlelight for his lover.

The empty room offers nothing but shadows and still quiet.

Then, a soft breeze smelling of woodsmoke and pines, wafts the curtains beside an open balcony door and he spots him.

Mahanon Lavellan.

Their Inquisitor is a gorgeous man.

“How you aren’t freezing out here in this brisk mountain air, must be a miracle sent from Andraste’s perky tits herself,” he says, chuckling as he steps up beside Mahanon a few seconds later.

The Dalish man is standing on the balcony, his face raised to the fading moons, brow furrowed. His hands rest firmly on the balcony edge, gripping as if that cool granite is the only thing anchoring him.

He’d pulled on a pair of soft leather breeches while Dorian fetched their tea, as well as a nearly see-through linen shirt.

But his feet are bare.

And his hair still drapes his shoulders.

He almost seems vulnerable in the silver-blue light of pre-dawn.

“I grew up in the mountains along the Wounded Coast,” he says, eyes still closed but his lips quirk when he feels Dorian settle beside him. “I barely notice the cold. Besides,” he glances from the corner of his eye to the other mage, “My Keeper taught me how to keep myself warm with my magic. Handy little trick they don’t teach most Circle mages.”

“Hmm,” Dorian hums, smiling into his cup of steaming tea and handing his companion his own cup. Their fingers brush when Mahanon accepts the mug, a spark of warm energy dancing between their touch. He shudders, something rather like desire rushing warm and liquid through his limbs. “What else did your Keeper teach you, Inquisitor Lavellan?”

Mahanon snorts, rolling his eyes and blowing on his tea for a moment before taking a sip.

“That I should never tell Tevinter mages the Clan’s secrets, should they capture me and try and twist my magic from my body,” he snarks, moonlight glinting on a canine when he grins out at the mountains hemming them in.

“Ah, well,” Dorian sighs, shrugging one bare shoulder. “Your Keeper was a smart…”

He hesitates, suddenly realizing that he isn’t entirely sure who Keeper of Clan Lavellan might have been.

“She was a very wise woman,” Mahanon says, his voice quiet, sad. “I would have been honored to succeed her as the Keeper. And I know I would never have been able to protect the clan as well as she had, for so many years.”

The soft clatter of his cup being set aside is loud in the resulting silence.

Dorian, gulping down some of his worry, reaches out a shaking hand to rest on the other man’s shoulder.

“Mahanon…” he hesitates, staring at his lover’s stoic profile, taking in his elegant, aquiline nose. The tracing green lines of ink that seem to mimic sylven tree limbs. The gentle sweep of his pointed ear peeking through his long black hair. “Who is Aaren?”

Mahanon tenses under his hand, eyes squeezing closed as he takes a deep, ragged breath. Dorian watches from the corner of his eye as his hands clench into white-knuckled fists on the balcony railing.

Magic, acrid and wild, stirs in their tiny bubble but both mages ignore the rise of mana. Ignore the bitter taste of potential on their tongues.

“The Dalish do not marry,” Mahanon finally says, his voice raw, his words slow and halting. He shudders once under Dorian’s hand but he takes a deep breath and forces his limbs to relax, his hands to open and spread wide upon the granite railing he leans against. “We don’t marry and are welcome to bed anyone we please. Sometimes partnerships are born from those beddings. Sometimes lovers choose monogamy. But should they change their minds or wish for something else or more at any point in their futures, that is acceptable. It is even expected. The Dalish...we are not as prolific as we had once been…”

He sighs, head bowing for a moment, eyes still closed.

Dorian, already beginning to suspect where this story is going, waits, his heart in his throat.

Instead he focuses on the other man’s low voice. On the steady rise and fall of his chest. On the warmth of his body washing over Dorian’s own chilled skin.

On the fact that Mahanon hasn’t cast him aside yet.

“I met Aaren when his clan crossed paths with my own, eight or so years ago. I had just been chosen as my Keeper’s First,” he continues after a moment, obviously working at gathering his thoughts.

And maybe his courage.

“His Keeper had been attacked by Templars on the road from Kirkwall and ours offered up our healers’ aid and our warriors’ protection.” His fingers spasm a bit and he laughs bitterly. “Their clan had nearly been wiped out, most of the women and children either dead or wishing they were dead. It was...it was wise for them to stay with a much larger group and accept our aid.”

He sighs and Dorian almost misses his soft laugh, his ears ringing with unexpected fury on the part of his lover’s Dalish brethren.

 _Kirkwall? Kirkwall had been hell for everyone, elven and human alike_ , he thinks, remembering some of the stories Cullen had divulged of his station in the City of Chains. Even Varric had held nothing back when he’d told tales of crazed Templars holding the city. _Maker...What did Mahanon see there?_

“What happened?” he asks finally, stroking his fingers into Mahanon’s hair and running a knuckle along the outer shell of his ear. “Did you kill some wicked Templars?”

“No,” Mahanon sighs, a wry smile twisting his lips. “No, we ran deeper into the Free Marches, to more welcoming corners of the country. But Aaren’s clan stayed with us, when his Keeper finally succumbed to his wounds. His First had died as well...They were leaderless. Aaren and most of the others decided to become Lavellan. It’s very common these days.”

He sighs again, reaching up to tuck some of his hair behind his ear, when the wind seeks to tease it about his face.

“Aaren was…” He swallows and turns his face up to the mountains once more, pain twisting his features for a moment before his usual stoic mask snaps back into place. Dorian’s heart aches at the sight, at the shuttering of his eyes. “Aaren and I grew close over the following months. He was fierce, wild. He’d fought in the Blight, with the Hero of Ferelden. He’d fought alongside werewolves and mabari, Grey Wardens and the King of Ferelden.” He chuckles, a small smile curling his beautiful, scarred lips. “Sometimes his tales seemed too far-fetched to be true. But he made the children of our clans laugh. And he made me happy. I...I fell in love with him, slowly at first and then, all at once.”

He shifts and glances at Dorian, smile turning a bit sheepish, this confession obviously worrying him.

Dorian just smiles and strokes his knuckles gently over the other man’s arm.

“He sounds like a lovely, colorful man,” he says, voice gentle, none of his usual bravado coloring his words. “I am glad you found some comfort with him, love.”

His heart aches at the thought of someone so precious to Mahanon being snatched away.

Mahanon chuckles. “I don’t know how well he’d take to the words ‘lovely’ or ‘colorful,’” he continues, finishing off his tea and turning to perch on the balcony railing. “He was not a hard man, per-se. But his clan’s warriors had been raised to fight tooth-and-nail for any and all weaker than them.. He wielded his sword like a man crazed. There were times I wondered if he wasn’t a child of the moon, himself. But…”

He sighs and runs his fingers worriedly through his hair, green eyes distant, brow furrowed with his painful memories.

Dorian just waits, stroking his knuckles gently over his arm periodically, comforting as best he can, without being stifling.

Mahanon, finally, takes another deep breath and lips twisting in a bitter smile, reaches up to catch Dorian’s hand in his own. Taking the comfort offered, he focuses on the other man, running his fingers gently along his tan palm, tracing the lines there.

“But even in the end, fierce warrior that he was, he couldn’t keep us all safe. He fell and I failed him,” he murmurs, voice cracking on the last few words. Tears trace their way through the ink on his cheeks and Dorian murmurs his name, drawing closer, desperate to touch, to hold. But scared of what it may elicit in Mahanon.

“What happened, amatus?” he asks, reaching up to stroke the other man’s silken hair. “Tell me what happened.”

_Let me help you..._

“We were close to the Ferelden Circle when the rebellion started. We’d heard Mahariel had vanished. Aaren wanted to try and find her, for the King in Denerim. But the rebellion happened before we could track her,” Mahanon says, voice rough with tears, with his twisting emotions. “The Templars were going rogue with the Order crumbling and rebel mages rising up against them. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much idea of what was happening, we’d been traveling for quite a while.” He shrugs helplessly, free hand tangling in his shirt hem. “Aaren and I were with some of the clan, they were younger than we, just starting their training. The child he considered his daughter was a mage, just starting to learn the ways of her calling. I had taken her on as my apprentice”

He swallows heavily once more and Dorian-part of him reeling at the thought of his young lover playing the role of adoptive father with his apparent partner-hums to him in Tevene, running his fingers lightly over his ear.

“There were a group of Templars in the woods with us, unknown to the rest of our people. They’d been following us for days, I think, tracking us. Tracking our mages. They saw us split off that day and decided to...well. The Dalish are playthings to men such as they. And looking back I think they may have been in the early days of corruption by red lyrium. They…” He hesitates, fiddling with a loose thread in his shirt. “When they attacked us, Aaren and I were not prepared. We had been relaxing together, content in our perceived safety, watching the little ones as they played in the woods. We should have been watchful, we should have had more adults with us. We were fools…”

Helpless sorrow colors his voice, weighs his shoulders down and Dorian risks all, by wrapping his arm around the man’s slender waist and pressing a soft kiss to his shoulder.

“Take your time, sweetheart,” he says, ignoring the burn of tears in his weary eyes. “I am here for you.”

Comfort and support.

Mahanon stares unseeing into some middle distance, jaw muscles clenching and he grips Dorian’s hand tight.

“I nearly died that day and when I woke up, several days later, Aaren was dead, the children were all gone and his daughter, our daughter had been captured by rogue Templars and was apparently being dragged to a shem village called Haven where the human’s Holy Figure had summoned a Conclave. Liarha didn’t even make it to the Temple, Leliana tells me. She died of her wounds, somewhere on the road to Haven.”

He’d known this was coming.

Maker, he’d known.

But still, the words falling from his lover’s lips chilled him.

Terrified him.

“Oh gods, Mahanon,” he says, pulling away enough to see the burning rage and pain in his lover’s face. “Leliana said you were sent to the Conclave to watch and report back to your Clan but you went…”

He chokes on the words. On the truth, he sees blazing in his lover’s sharp green eyes.

“I went to Divine Justinia’s Conclave for revenge, ma vhenan,” Mahanon murmurs, teeth bared in a feral sort of snarl. “Revenge for the man I loved and the child we thought of as ours.”

And just as quickly as it had washed over him, his fury fades and Inquisitor Lavellan lets out a bone-weary sigh, shoulders sagging and head falling forward to press against his lover’s chest.

“But in the end, I became the figurehead of a Holy War,” he sighs, his voice bitter. Resigned. “I failed them, Dorian.”

Dorian’s shaking arms rise to wrap tight around his trembling shoulders and Mahanon starts to laugh.

They clutch each other, there on the balcony, Mahanon’s harsh, desperate, exhausted laughter washing over them and Dorian’s eyes close.

“My sweet man,” he sighs, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead, his thumbs stroking away the hot tears trailing across his cheeks. “You are not failing your lover or your clan.” He kisses his forehead again, smiling when Mahanon’s arms tighten more around his chest. “You are trying to make the world better for those oppressed by the old order. Dalish and human, mage and mundane alike. You are trying so hard. And I see that and I love you for it. And I think Aaren would love you for it too.”

Mahanon’s shaking slows and he sighs, raising his tear-streaked face to Dorian’s.

Green eyes meet brown, and as dawn finally starts to break over Skyhold, a relieved, hopeful smile crosses his lips.

“Ma serannas, ma vhenan,” he says, quietly, his eyes softening when Dorian lets him cup his cheek. “I do not deserve you.”

Dorian snorts at that and places a gentle, teasing kiss on his lips.

“Don’t fret, Inquisitor Lavellan,” he says, easing free of his arms and gathering their abandoned tea things up. “No one in this barbaric realm deserves the likes of me.”

And with that he winks, smirks, and slips from the balcony, leaving the Inquisitor to his thoughts.

To this old, hollow sorrow.

Somehow, Mahanon reflects a while later, facing a furious Josephine, that sorrow does not seem to cut as deep as it had just a day ago.

Somehow...the taste of blood on the back of his tongue is not as drowning.

 _Is this peace?_  he thinks, as the lovely ambassador lectures him on propriety and responsibility. He sips yet another cup of tea, his eyes staring unseeing at the missive she’d thrust under his nose the moment she’d burst through his door unannounced.

_Ah Mythal...do I deserve peace?_


End file.
